


Magnus Opus

by MindfulWrath



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, Refuge Arc, Temporal Chalice, The Eleventh Hour
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-12
Updated: 2016-10-12
Packaged: 2018-08-22 03:22:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8270701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MindfulWrath/pseuds/MindfulWrath
Summary: Magnus likes to fix things. Things just have a nasty habit of not staying fixed.





	

_I love you, Jules._

 

She waves, and he gets in the cart. He flicks the reins and trundles off, towards Neverwinter, the lavender scent of the chair sticking to his hands. He glances back just once, to see her turn and go inside. The shop, the spire, the city, all clean and neat and perfect.

Well. Dirty and messy and always a little broken, but _home._

The wheels rattle on the sky bridges, the horse balks on the way down the long switchbacked path out of Raven's Roost. He whistles to himself as he goes. The day is crisp and bright, like a fresh-picked apple. He goes to Neverwinter, dreams of glory dancing hearth-warm in his head.

 

Only he doesn't.

 

Two days out of Raven's Roost and the dread sets in, the premonition. The sky goes grey and cold and something heavy settles in Magnus's stomach. He considers going on, glancing over his shoulder, but two miles down the road the cart cracks a wheel and that's it.

He unhitches the cart. He gets on the horse and rides hard all the way back to Raven's Roost.

He makes it in time.

Callen is setting charges around the base of the Artisan's Corridor. It's painfully obvious from this angle. Magnus rushes in, unthinking, uncaring. The man has done too much harm already, and the time for mercy is over. The commotion draws others down from the spires. This time they do not just rout Callen and his goons. This time there is blood.

Magnus returns home to Julia and Steven a murderer. He does not feel the change in him until many days later, when he is lying next to his wife and she does not touch him.

 

_I love you, Jules._

 

She draws more distant with time, and the change becomes more profound. He is angry. He is always angry. Things are always misaligned, improper. He is a hammer and damn near everything is a nail. It's all _fixable,_ all suddenly so _fixable,_ all the things he bore and endured and grinned through, but no one will let him _fix_ it. He fixed Callen. He fixed Callen _real_ good. Why should anything else be different?

Steven is frustrated with him. Julia is frustrated with him. Everyone he knows is drawing away from him like he is a fire grown too hot to be doused. Julia tries to douse him anyway, tries to wrangle him, tries to wrest the hammer from his soul.

They fight. Over and over and over, they fight.

He strikes her.

 

Only he doesn't.

 

He never raises his hand, although his knuckles sting with the force of the blow he never landed. He walks away. He keeps walking. For six months, he does not look back.

The world is wide and wicked, and the hammer of his anger makes no dents in it. He wears himself down until there is no anger, no hammer left. He batters at the steel of it until he is broken.

He turns his steps towards home, or at least towards Raven's Roost. The road is long, he is weary, he is somehow decades older. He returns, to the city, to the shop, to Julia.

There is another man.

 

_I love you, Jules._

 

Magnus has no anger left to reshape this. He is powerless, and he makes no effort to dash himself against the steel walls of reality. He wishes them well. He packs his things. He leaves.

The world is not wide enough, although it is far too wicked. Things are in motion that he has no part in. Cities vanish off the map. Eyes open in the midnight sky. The moon crashes free of its orbit and makes mad dashes across the sky.

People die. Cities die. Civilizations die.

One day it's Raven's Roost, and it's Julia, and Magnus cannot bear the thought of truly losing her. He secludes himself, digs desperately through his memories for a scrap of love, of hope. He recalls the very first time he met her, introduced himself, set these terrible wheels in motion.

 

Only he doesn't.

 

The woman is beautiful, the most beautiful woman he's ever seen. Magnus is smitten instantly. Has he ever lived before today? He thinks probably not. She is everything. She is the sun and the moon and the stars. He must speak with her. He must say _something._ He must hear her voice and know her name and tell her—tell her—

 

_I love you, Jules._

 

His hands shake for reasons he can't articulate and he spills beer all down his shirt. The shock makes him take his eyes off her, the echoes in his head making his ears ring. When he looks up again, she is gone. He tries to find her, but the bartender chases him down and forces him to pay his tab. Steven, the carpenter, does not hire the slovenly man who reeks of alcohol.

Magnus leaves Raven's Roost and finds some other place for himself in the world. It is a dreary, joyless life. He survives. He survives, but he does not live.

One day, when he is old and empty and frail, he stands atop a high cliff and decides he will not survive anymore.

 

Only he doesn't.

 

He takes Julia and Steven and flees Raven's Roost when Callen's tyranny grows unbearable. They are ambushed on the road. Steven dies. Julia is mortally wounded.

 

_I love you, Jules._

 

She dies in his arms. He loses himself to grief.

 

Only he doesn't.

 

Something makes him smash his best chair in the night. Julia wonders if he's gone mad. Magnus wonders the same.

 

_I love you, Jules._

 

Nothing makes sense. He remembers things that never happened and forgets things that are constant. He goes mad.

 

Only he doesn't.

 

He saves her. He loses her. He runs, he fights, he bargains, he pleads. He is tired, tired, tired. He never meets her. He never keeps her. He cannot stop losing her. The world is thin and threadbare and he watches it unravel. He loves her. He hates her. He lost her.

 

_I love you, Jules._

 

Magnus reaches out to take the chalice from June.

 

Only he doesn't.

 


End file.
